Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Finance, Growth and Core Services introduced the Council’s revenue budget monitoring report for the 2023/24 financial year as of 30 November 2023 (period 8).

The Council’s General Fund revenue budget for 2023/24 was £199.002m and the forecast outturn position at the end of November projected a net overspend of £10.54m after transfers to and from reserves, which represented an improvement of £1.065m on the position at period 7.  The Housing Revenue Account (HRA) was showing a projected overspend of £5.0528m for 2023/24, which represented an improvement of £2.029m from period 7. 

The Cabinet Member welcomed the reduced overspend positions and encouraged Cabinet Members and Directors to continue to make every effort to further reduce the overspend position by the year-end, especially in light of the continuing risks, such as demands on social care services, that continue to threaten the Council’s ability to achieve a balanced budget.  He also referred to a recent letter from over 40 Conservative MPs criticising the Chancellor of the Exchequer for failing to provide sufficient additional funding in the draft Local Government Finance Settlement for 2024/25 to meet excessive inflationary costs and increased demand for local authority services, adding that had the Government introduced the Fair Funding reforms that it had previously promised, it was likely that the Council would be operating at a small surplus instead of facing an overspend position.

Cabinet resolved to:

(i)  Note the projected £10.540m revenue overspend forecast at Period 8 for the General Fund for the 2023/24 financial year, as set out in sections 2 and 3 and Appendix A of the report and note the net projected year end drawdown of £4.88m reserves to support the in-year position;

(ii)  Note the projected £5.052m revenue overspend forecast for the Housing Revenue Account, as set out in section 6 and Appendix A of the report;

(iii)  Note the projected returns for the Investment and Acquisition Strategy as set out in section 4 and Appendix A of the report;

(iv)  Note the movement in Reserve drawdown as indicated in section 5 of the report and that the Cabinet shall be asked to approve the drawdown of reserves to support any overspends at final outturn (post March 2024), subject to finalisation of the actual spend against budget; and

(v)  Note that a review of reserve balances was being conducted and an updated position shall be provided as part of the Budget Setting report in February 2024.